This year the monsoon in Lonavla was a dampener. A favourite getaway for tourists from Mumbai, Pune and even Gujarat, the hill station that is usually crowded with people all through the monsoon, witnessed a steep 50 per cent drop in tourist figures this season.

‘‘Usually, Lonavla witnesses minimum 50,000 tourists on any given weekend. Independence Day is usually big since we have people coming from Mumbai and Pune in large numbers. However, this time there were just about 20,000 people,’’ says Lonavla Municipal Corporation administrative officer Ashok Jadhav.

While the main reasons for the decrease in numbers is being attributed to the heavy rain, other factors like the Mumbai bomb blasts and the high alert in the country on August 15 certainly added to the troubles.

Little wonder then that the hotels and restaurants have an equally woeful story to tell. Most hotels that are sold out during the monsoon did receive booking enquiries as early as June, before the season begun, but only a fraction of the enquiries turned into business. ‘‘Nearly 80 per cent of the tourists come from Mumbai and around 10 per cent from Gujarat, but since both these areas saw heavy rain this season, the turnover was disappointing,’’ says Anish Ganatra, vice-president, Hotel and Restaurant Association of Lonavla and Khandala.

Vaishali Nair, sales manager, Hotel Vallerina, says they had to bear 40 per cent losses this season owing to the heavy rain and the bomb blasts. ‘‘Though the long weekend around August 15 was fully booked, overall, the season has not been grea.’’

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